Val Thevictorian and the Half-Assed Dense

Hick may be a good guy, but that doesn't mean he escapes my wrath doesn't annoy me, being home two extra days a week with his incomplete retirement.

Hick is what I consider one of The Dense. Those folks who are not stupid, but just a bit unaware of the world around them. Genius and The Pony have their dense moments, too.

Genius, when living at home, and even when visiting now, has a penchant for laying on the couch, and requesting that I do things for him that he is perfectly capable of doing for himself. Like make him a sandwich. His own denseness became apparent when he went off to Missouri Boys State his junior year of high school.

"Mom! We all sat around our dorm and looked at each other and said, 'Who's going to make us sandwiches?' It was scary. We didn't know what to do."

The Pony sometimes goes out of his way to be dense. I'd make a reference to beating a dead horse, but what with him being called The Pony, that might be pushing the envelope of good taste. And we all know Val's blog is a bastion of good taste. Anyhoo...The Pony refused to admit that a yard ornament was a Halloween decoration, instead proclaiming it to be a formal dinner faux pas. Makes me worry about his dining companions if he's ever invited to a fancy soiree.

I think that maybe some of Hick's denseness has roots in...um...laziness. Like when he makes a big show of coming to the garage to carry in the groceries about once in every 15 Walmart trips, and then leaves the HEAVY items, like soda and water, in the back of T-Hoe. Last week, he didn't even show up until I had everything carried to the side porch. But he declared that he would take those groceries in for me!

A half hour later, after I'd put things away, I noticed that the two six-packs of 20 oz sodas were missing, and two four-packs of strawberry water. I found them on the porch, on the shelf by the cat kibble pan, where I had set them and he had left them. THEN, back in the house, I saw the nine-pack of Charmin sitting on the piano bench. Let the record show that we are not prone to sitting down for an impromptu recital, and even if we were, we would not pause to wipe our butt beforehand. The piano is across from the towel/blanket closet, where we also store the toilet paper. All he had to do was rip open the pack, reach his arm over to open the closet door, and set the rolls inside.

I thought that maybe Hick, since he's getting older, might need a hearing aid. Because even though I loudly mentioned three times that the trash was overflowing, and that I was tired of balancing items on top of the trash, and that trash day was tomorrow...Hick did not take out the trash! Same thing with the clumps of mud scattered across the kitchen linoleum and living room carpet. THREE mentions of it. "I'm walking in mud here by the refrigerator. Those mud clods in the carpet hurt my feet. You tracked in a bunch of mud again." But Hick did not seem to hear! Or else he was just planning to do things his own half-assed way, when he was good and ready. Like maybe pile the clumps of mud on top of the trash.

It's not like I expect Hick to read my mind. I clearly tell him what the problem is. Three times! Maybe I should just start hollering, "Pick up your mud!" and "Take out the trash, now!" Would that make it easier for him? Instead of those nuanced hints?